


remember, okay?

by gekijougai



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Bittersweet, F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28766712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gekijougai/pseuds/gekijougai
Summary: Mari never wanted to leave.
Relationships: Matsuura Kanan/Ohara Mari
Kudos: 7





	remember, okay?

**Author's Note:**

> another one of those fics that i had to take out because it's been rotting in my drafts for a long time.

Mari jolts awake with tears in her eyes.

Her head is throbbing and she feels _heavy,_ like something stockpiling inside her and it has no way out. She sits up and puts a hand on her forehead. It’s warm, but she doesn’t feel sick. She just feels awful.

“Oh, you’re awake.” Her mother says, peeking from the door. “You should prepare soon, the flight leaves in a few hours.”

She leaves and Mari looks to her side, her dress folded neatly and luggage piled up on top of the other. Right. She’s to leave Uchiura to study abroad.

Her goodbyes were… silent. It hasn't been easy to relay to Kanan and Dia that she’s going to go to Italy even with her reluctance, because the opportunities are opportunities and her life is ahead of her. They said she’s a genius, that she has so much potential she could use and she shouldn’t be wasting her future in a small town and a small school.

She doesn’t believe them. She has always known what she really wants. She doesn’t particularly care for them because all that mattered to her was being a school idol and being with Kanan and Dia. They somehow couldn’t see what was important to _her._ She would be a school idol for as long as she wanted because it’s her future and the suffocating grip of expectations and limitations never stopped her.

Until it did.

It was Kanan who convinced her to go. 

I’m sorry I couldn’t sing, she said. _No, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault_. Her ankle aches a phantom pain even when Mari could walk and run and jump all the same. It was never Kanan’s fault. Why couldn’t she see that?

She would never leave if she had the option. But it’s all gone now, isn’t it?

Dia was the more gentle one of them about it, surprisingly. But Mari feels like Dia knows more than she lets on, though her energy was gone and Mari was just tired. She didn’t want to pry it away from her all because she was exhausted. She just knew someday she’ll know why. For now, she has a helicopter to get on, no matter how sickening the height is even if she has ridden it hundreds of times.

They skipped their attendance in favor of making Mari’s last day in Uchiura a memorable one. Uchiura is small enough that they’ve memorized the corners and streets, yet they’ve reached far enough to make sure Mari remembers every single one for her to carry with her when she feels too lost.

“Remember here?” Kanan says when they reach the pier, her fingers tender around Mari’s hand despite the callouses and roughness of it from how much she worked for her family. “We practiced here a lot.”

She says it with a smile so sad that sounds like this were only going to be the last time they’ll ever see each other. It’s too heavy.

“Why do you say it like this is never going to happen again?”

The laughter dies down too abruptly, and both of them look away. 

Oh.

Mari shakes her head. “Never mind.”

They move on from there, not saying anything, no matter how much Mari’s heart screams that she believes it, it’ll happen again and they’ll be back together again before they know it.

“Come on, Mari,” Dia says, leading them out from the pier. “It’s not long before you leave.”

She doesn’t want to leave. She never wanted to leave.

Suddenly, it all crashes to her in fast waves. She remembers songwriting, she remembers costume making, and she remembers dancing. They all had their roles, and with that, they worked together like a little school project and it hit Mari how much she's about to lose.

She crushes both of them in a hug when they stand by the pier, the breeze ever so gently brushing her skin in a feeling all too far and all too familiar.

“M-Mari _—_ ”

“I’ll never forgive myself for leaving.” _I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m going to leave._

The arms around her are so warm. Mari cries and vows that the moment she’s going to leave Japan, she’s never going to cry again.

“Don’t be sorry,” Kanan says to her, her own smile almost broken no matter how hard she tried. “You need this, after all.”

She lies. Mari believes in her lies anyway.

-

_"Promise me one thing, Kanan.”_

_“What is it?”_

_Mari looks at Kanan one last time, memorizing her hair and her eyes. She did the same thing to Dia, but it’s quite different when she does it to Kanan. Kanan mirrors her, radiating the warmth she has felt fading away in her dreams. She doesn’t tell that to her. She says something else instead, even if it didn’t feel quite right._

_(As long as it feels like it’s what it should be.)_

_“Don’t ever forget about me.”_

_Kanan laughs, with the serenity of silent waves and the lightness of the salty breeze. Mari thinks, even with the distance that will break her heart and the absence of someone she has always loved, this could never be taken away from her. Not from her. Not from Kanan._

_Mari makes Kanan promise because, for Mari, she’ll promise the same thing herself. She promises herself because she loves her, and all her life like waves of the ocean, she’s always known to love her and she can’t remember a part of her life when she didn’t ever love her._

_“You know what, Mari?”_

_“Huh?”_

_“Even if we’re apart,” Her hair flows with the wind. The orange skies glow gently on her skin. She’s so near. She’s so far away. “I won’t forget about you.”_

_-_

Mari tries hard to look down at her from the helicopter, taking in the smallest sight of the flashlight and the disappearing look from her two best friends. It goes farther, higher, longer within her reach.

But just like all dreams, they fade away the more she’s aware of being awake, even if the sickening, nostalgic feeling stays with the odd memories that she used to hold dear. It all falls into place as if this was bound to happen. She lets it take her away, afraid, but already longing for the day that everything will fall back into place as it should be.

The sound of the propellers fall silent in her ears, and she’s filled with the lingering warmth of Kanan’s arms despite the overwhelming sadness of leaving because a part of her knows she’ll come back. It’s one thing she has told herself millions of times, even though she feels like she has never said that she’s ever going to leave.

There’s a lump in her throat but the hope doesn’t burn out from her chest. This is what it should be. Home doesn’t feel as far she thinks.

And then, it’ll be like she never left.


End file.
